Wednesday’s Mini-Report

January 3, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* I might have a little more confidence in the Iraqi prime minister if he didn’t seem to hate being the Iraqi prime minister. From a recent interview: “I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term. I didn’t want to take this position.”

* Following up on a report that found capital punishment is costly to taxpayers and serves “no legitimate intent,” New Jersey state lawmakers are moving forward with a plan to abolish the practice. A 13-member commission, which has spent a year researching the issue, has recommended that the death penalty be replaced with life in prison without parole. If the legislature agrees with the commission’s recommendations, New Jersey will be the first state to end capitol punishment through lawmaking instead of judicial order.

* Willard Scott suggested snow storms in Colorado should cast doubt on global warming. He didn’t appear to be kidding.

* I don’t want to get my hopes up, but if Bill O’Reilly appeared on The Colbert Report, it would have to be entertaining.

* If you watch tonight’s Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and happen to catch the ads from Allstate, the game’s corporate sponsor, you might want to keep in mind that Allstate hasn’t exactly been helpful to the people of the city still struggling to recover from Katrina.

* I’m sure the ads will no doubt draw massive complaints from the right, but I like the new MasterCard signs in the Washington subway system.

* Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the new House Democratic Caucus chairman, tried to host a press conference on ethics reform today, but couldn’t — anti-war protestors lead by Cindy Sheehan interrupted the event, refused to let the Dems speak, and eventually forced lawmakers to give up. Welcome to the majority.

* I get the distinct impression that Fox News personalities aren’t supposed to talk about the president’s youthful experimentation with drugs.

* Kevin Drum has a painful item today on CEO salaries. In this case, Home Depot Chief Executive Robert L. Nardelli resigned suddenly, but will walk away with a severance package of $210 million, on top of the $240 million Nardelli received in salary, bonuses and stock options over the last six years. For those keeping score at home, that’s $450 million for a guy who led a company that led a company that lost value and market share on his watch.

* MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson argued this week that Democrats “just squeaked through” the midterm elections. Considering that Dems exceeded expectations, gained 30 House seats and six Senate seats, and will now hold a larger majority in the House than Republicans had in any Congress since they gained control in 1994, what, exactly, is the standard for “squeaking through”?

* Thanks to a gracious offer from the Bush White House, Senate Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin will fly on a White House-provided military plane to Gerald Ford’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this afternoon, then fly back for a presidential reception for the new Congress. Good for Bush. A little good will goes a long way.

* We can add former Defense Secretary (and former Republican senator) William Cohen to the list of those who no longer support the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

* And, finally, Morbo’s distaste for comic books not withstanding, I was pleased to see the writers of the Spider-man comic book subtly go after Bush administration policy in its new issue. Apparently, in the story, Spider-man initially approves of her national security measures imposed by the government, but changes his mind after detainees are held without civil rights at an off-shore prison.

If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

It’s hard to think of what to say to Cindy Sheehan, maybe chill out a bit? Does she not want ethics reform?

Coming across that angry is not going to convince anyone that they need to get our kids out of Iraq. The Democratic agenda, if allowed to succeed, will save a lot more lives than are currently being lost in Iraq.

  • Regarding Denver and global warming, who says Denver has actually been colder? All you need for a goodly amount of snow is temperatures right around, or just below, freezing. In fact, for a place that is normally well below freezing (Denver has an average daily low in January around 15 degrees), a warming trend can lead to more snow, not less. Cold air just cannot hold as much moisture.

    So, more snow is not necessarily evidence of colder temperatures, and especially not of global warming.

  • “Willard Scott suggested snow storms in Colorado should cast doubt on global warming.”

    That’s like saying it’s not warm in July because the Arctic is cold. Dumbass.

    “Apparently, in the story, Spider-man initially approves of her national security measures imposed by the government, but changes his mind after detainees are held without civil rights at an off-shore prison.”

    Are they going to send Spiderman to Gitmo, now?

  • Re: Alex Johnson. Nevermind squeaking, stop your squealing. The Democrats won (even in states like Va & Oh) but according to this arsehat we, or at least the Democratic party is supposed to feel bad because they didn’t win every single seat up for election in the country.

    I guess it couldn’t be anything like the fact that some Repuglicans aren’t so repugnant or that some places are inhabited by people who will persistently vote by party even when that party stinks on ice because the candidate says the right things about saving the zygotes and crushing the hom-sectuls.

    And at least no Democratic candidate had to steal their fricking seat.

    Send out the clowns, we don’t need the clowns…

  • ***Willard Scott suggested snow storms in Colorado should cast doubt on global warming. He didn’t appear to be kidding.***

    50 degrees and sunshine on the third day in January in Northeast Ohio should cast even greater doubt on the existence of Willard Scott. No kidding. Really. Honest….

  • I was reading an article from 2003 that pointed out that climate change may not happen for millenium but when it does happen it happens fast within a decade of certain warning signs. It flips a switch rather than slowly changes.It’s like 5000 “no change” then 2 “changing” then 5000 changed

  • Wow. Where to start? Is that MC ad real, or a clever snark? Either way, I like it.

    For a while now, I’ve thought it’s fair to ask if Shehan’s tactics had outlived their effectiveness. I’d say she pretty clearly answered yes to that.

    Someone should take Willard aside and explain evaporation to him. Since he does weather, they might also want to explain to him that the moisture in the air that falls as rain or snow gets up there by evaporating from our oceans. Warmer oceans = more evaporarion = more precipitation. Even if we forgive the mistake of conflating a local weather pattern with global trends, he still got it wrong. Then again, he’s a TV weatherman, I doubt he’ll ever get it.

  • * Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the new House Democratic Caucus chairman, tried to host a press conference on ethics reform today, but couldn’t — anti-war protestors lead by Cindy Sheehan interrupted the event, refused to let the Dems speak, and eventually forced lawmakers to give up. Welcome to the majority.

    Good for Sheehan. The Dems have already been talking about accepting a “surge” and have made no “get tough” statements at all. No more business as usual until the war ends.

  • no legitimate intent

    Maybe this was supposed to be “no legitimate legislative intent”?

    That would sound like a legal standard for constitutionality. I think there are prongs (lawyers call them) of a few different multi part legal tests- different judicially required standards for constitutionality of a law applied to different kinds of challenges to a law based on the constitution- that require a “legitimate legislative intent.” It’s kind of a requirement to show that a given law isn’t arbitrary. Like in Equal Protection law under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, proving that the legislature had a legitimate (i.e., nondiscriminatory) reason for passing a facially discriminatory law is part of proving that the law isn’t discriminatory in a prohibited, unconstitutional way. State constitutions can have similar standards.

    So maybe the NJ legislature was saying that they thought the law was unconstitutional.

  • “We want accountability,” Sheehan said. “We just buried a president who did not hold another president accountable for war crimes and that’s why we’re in Iraq right now. Our leaders who get us into these messes are the ones who need to be held accountable.”

    I’m not sure how I feel about her group shouting down the Dem press conference. On the one hand, I’m a big believer in the idea that “I disagree with you but will defend your right to be heard”, i.e., the fact that she shouldn’t simply shout down someone with a different viewpoint, like ethics reform is today’s topic.

    That said, she’s attempting to draw attention to what cannot be other than the country’s most pressing issue overall, the Iraq war. She made the news and hopefully made people think about what we’re doing and where we’re going with all of this. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk reaction is that she should just shut up.

    But if it were my son killed in Iraq and all I ever wanted to know was what glorious cause did he die for, would I act any differently?

  • Willard Scott suggested snow storms in Colorado should cast doubt on global warming. He didn’t appear to be kidding.

    Er…

    A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan broke from an ice shelf in Canada’s far north and could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, a researcher said on Friday.

    Global warming could be one cause of the break of the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island, which occurred in the summer of 2005 but was only detected recently by satellite photos, said Luke Copland, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s geography department.

    It was the largest such break in nearly three decades, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 square km (25 square miles) adrift in the Arctic Ocean, said Copland, who specializes in the study of glaciers and ice masses….

    And make of this what you will:

    …For the last two months, no snow has fallen on New York’s Central Park, and it probably will not fall anytime soon, forecasters say. Indeed, not since April 8 has there been even a flurry.

    The U.S. National Weather Service said that last month appeared to be the first December without a snowflake here since 1877.

    Moreover, New York City is not alone. Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, Vienna and Stockholm report little or no snow this season.

    It has been so warm in Yaroslavl, a city about 240 kilometers, or 150 miles, northeast of Moscow, that Masha the bear, a resident of the city zoo, woke up last month from hibernation after only a week….

    I was in northern New Mexico and (briefly) Colorado last week. There was a hell of a lot of snow, but it was no colder than usual.

  • chicago just had its 27th consecutive day of above normal temperatures, w/ at least another week to go. willard is full of shit. (so – having thru over 55 chicago winters – i’m all for doing something about global warming… next spring!)

  • “Thanks to a gracious offer from the Bush White House, Senate Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin will fly on a White House-provided military plane…”

    Shouldn’t that be “a taxpayer provided plane” (that didn’t cost Bush a thing)?

  • #12 I’m not sure what you’re getting at Homer. A different topic is not a different viewpoint. What kind of answers did she hope to come away with from a press conference on Congressional ethics? She has every right to say whatever she wants, wherever she wants – It’s her right. But if she disrupts events with no bearing on her grievance, she’ll discover a lot of people practicing their right – to ignore her. I’m very sympathetic to her, but I’d say today was not only ineffective, but counterproductive. If she wants to wage a one woman crusade, she can screw it up however she pleases. If she wants allies, she’s going to have to think through her tactics a little better.

  • “Willard Scott suggested snow storms in Colorado should cast doubt on global warming. He didn’t appear to be kidding.”

    The term “global warming” is helpful because it provides an easy term that people can remember, but the effects of greenhouse gases on global climate are more complicated than just an average increase in global temperature. Of course, even the concept of an average increase in global temperature is not as simple as it being warmer everywhere all the time. While his implication that an unusually warm winter in the east does not prove global warming is correct, neither does the snow/cold in Colorado (after how many years of low snowfall in the past decade?) refute it. From the video, it is not clear to me that he was doing anything other than engaging in this sort of misses-the-point, meaningless debate. However, I was also struck by his use of the concept of “belief” in global warming.

    Regardless, the complicated and mostly subtle climate effects make it easy for people like John Stossel to spew out his stupidity (see link in the article CB linked on this). We will see how big a deal it is if climatic belts are shifted enough to significantly affect agriculture.

  • JoeW @17 –

    I don’t disagree with you at all (re-read my comment). I know that different topic does not equal different viewpoint. But I think her point was not that she was hoping to get answers to the Iraq war at a press conference on congressional ethics (as you query) but that congressional ethics is so secondary to the legitimacy of the Iraq war that the press conference should never even have been had in the first place.

    As I said, my first reaction was for her to shut up and I’m concerned that her message will be lost on most because of her tactics. But as I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a child under any circumstances let alone in the Iraq fiasco, I find it morally difficult to criticize her.

  • Racerx:

    Did you post this on Bush WSJ Editorial thread:

    “Fuck you, Mr. president. By the way, THAT was the message of November 7th. The American people said ‘You Democrats, go get that crazy bastard’.

    See you at the Hague.”

    Comment by Racerx — 1/3/2007 @ 5:15 pm

  • #19

    …but that congressional ethics is so secondary to the legitimacy of the Iraq war that the press conference should never even have been had in the first place.

    If that was her point, that’s where I get off the bus. Is ethics reform secondary to the Iraq debacle? Of course. But both must be addressed, simultaneously. The exit polls from the last election show that many people see Congressional ethics as a huge problem. Not as big as Iraq, but alarming just the same.

    I’m fed up with the ‘bigotry of low expectations.’ I’m tired of marveling at the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time. I expect my elected reps to competently handle dozens of issues at the same time. Shehan got in the way of that today. She did herself no favors.

  • JoeW –

    To quote the immortal Lloyd Dobler, you’re really turning me around here. I agree that Sheehan got in the way of another important issue today.

  • Open comment/question: did anyone else nearly gag to listen to the despicable Patrick McHenry talk about “keeping things fair” in Congress on All Things Considered this afternoon? Listening to that smarmy little shit, I was reminded how some people make life better by their presence, and others by their absence. The quality of national life would certainly go up following the discovery of young Mr. McHenry face down and bled out in a dark alley in D.C. Soon.

  • Oh, so NOW that your guys are in the majority, you don’t want to hear from Mother Sheehan? Very interesting . . .

  • Abucah (#2) said: “So, more snow is not necessarily evidence of colder temperatures, and especially not of global warming.”

    Quite right.

    What people fail to get is that global warming changes weather patterns. This doesn’t mean that every place gets warm. It means that just about every place begins to experience weather they have not had before. Global warming is affecting the winter jet stream, which determines how and whre snowstorms happen in the northern hemisphere.

    Anyone who thinks of Willard Scott as an actual “weatherman” probably believes the earth is flat and travels through space on the back of a turtle. Which sounds like the American Right to me.

  • JoeW (#7) said:

    “Someone should take Willard aside and explain evaporation to him. Since he does weather, they might also want to explain to him that the moisture in the air that falls as rain or snow gets up there by evaporating from our oceans. Warmer oceans = more evaporarion = more precipitation. Even if we forgive the mistake of conflating a local weather pattern with global trends, he still got it wrong. Then again, he’s a TV weatherman, I doubt he’ll ever get it. ”

    Right! Thank you!

    And then you take the moisture in the air and hit it with an arctic jet stream (because it has been forced north due to global warming) and….

    Can you say “unexpected blizzards”???

  • Thomas, then perhaps you need to pay closer attention. Your generalization that I’m (or JoeW) is simply complaining about Sheehan misses the point badly. I don’t disagree with her that the war is f’ed up and that no legitimate reason has ever been given to her why her son had to die. My concern was whether this was the best forum to voice that opinion. The reason it’s not hypocritical is because the rightwing nutjobs want to vilify Sheehan for the message and not for the timing. Rightwingers have been downright despicable to Sheehan. So please don’t lump me with those scumbags.

  • BTW: I read the article on Rehnquist — maybe that explains the Gilbert & Sullivan costume he always wore?

  • MSM definitely doesn’t like Obama. First CNN, then WashPo now Yahoo (sorry, if the story has a Permalink, I don’t know where to look for it. But it’s the top story at TPMCafe/Election Central at the moment and likely to remain so for the rest of the evening)

    http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/

    I wonder whether it’s that Americas isn’t ready for a black presidential candidate, or that our language education is lacking (so it’s difficult for us to wrap our minds around non-Anglo names), or that Sen Clinton is scuttling her biggest competition (another snippet on Election Central, lower down).

    re Sheehan: I wonder how many *Republican* press conferences (Bush’s, by preference, since he’s the originator of the fiasco in Iraq, though Rummy’s and Cheney’s would qualify) she’s disrupted in the past? It’s not as if the Dems are getting all that much media-time as it is, and it is against her goal (at least as stated) to antagonize them from day one, since they’re the only ones likely to be on her side. I guess either grief or a feeling of sudden power/prominence (or both) have addled her brains.

  • Thomas – I think the timing of her protests before the ’06 elections was usually during some war-related event/speech. So I’m not sure what you think of her actual position on the war (although I can guess).

    Just remember that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

    As for Rehnquist, I must have read nearly everyone of that douchebags opinions up through the mid-90’s. Remember that he was the first Chief Justice to insist on wearing 3 gold braided stripes around the sleeves of his robe. Prick. I’m not sure if there was ever a more “consistent” outcome-based decision maker on the Court. He knew what he wanted the result to be and then he would just make shit up.

    Scalia, at least he’s an intelligent douchebag. Although he conveniently picks and chooses when he wants to be a strict interpretationist.

  • I see our pet troll has returned. Welcome back, Thomas.

    In the interest of full disclosure, Cindy Shehan is not my mother. When and where Shehan demonstrates is separate from my sympathy for her point. I think she is more effective when her demonstrations confront the source of her grievance. George Bush has something to do with that. Congressional hearings into war related issues (pre-war intel, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, escalation, etc) are also relevant to varying degrees. A press conference on Congressional ethics? Not so much.

    This might be a difficult thing for you to grasp: The left did not make an icon of Cindy Shehan. BoyGeorgetheDeciderer did that in refusing to meet with her (with an assist from AM radio screech monkeys). 2 minutes of his time, and she’d have never been heard of again.

  • Well, Mother Sheehan was escorted from Bush’s State of the Union address — does that count? Too bad she decided not to run against Feinstein out in California — that would have been a riot!

  • Sorry, that post #37 was in response to libra’s #34. As for Bush meeting with Sheehan, he did. Somehow, I don’t quite believe that another 2 minutes would have done it either.

  • Let’s not loose prospective.If you want publicity you go where the cameras are and today they were at Rahm Emmanuel’s press conference. So Cindy Sheehan went to the press conference. She did no real harm. She hasn’t derailed ethic reform and people won’t suddenly switch back to supporting Bush on Iraq because Sheehen was rude.

    Remember, Sheehan was valuable back in 2004 to those who opposed the war because she served as reminder of the human cost of the illegitimate war when everyone was trying to ignore it. Perhaps now she will be valuable as a reminder of the human cost of dithering in finding a way out of Iraq.

  • Thomas, my troll? Bush’s problem with Shehan is she dared ask the one question he cannot answer. “Why?” Why this war that cost her son.

    WMD? Not there.
    Remove Saddam? (Snuff video?)
    Liberate Iraqis? (Into civil war and tribal cleansing?)
    Kill terrorists? (Or provoke more of them?)
    Spread Democracy in the ME? (Like in Iran and Palestine?)

    The Bush/GOP war has been debacle wrapped in disaster, iced with stupidity and sprinkled with arrogance, She lost her son and wants to know why.

    As a troll, I understand there is likely no reasoning with you. But, just because you’re in a room full of horseshit doesn’t mean someone has given you a pony. Everything Bush has touched has turned to horseshit, and there is no pony.

  • Cindy Sheehan is an idiot. I don’t disagree with her goals, but she has no clue about how to achieve them.

    The irony is that, as the mother of a dead soldier, she initially came onto the public stage as a sympathetic character who spoke with moral authority. However, her subsequent actions have thoroughly destroyed her ability to communicate to those who aren’t already on her side.

  • But, just because you’re in a room full of horseshit doesn’t mean someone has given you a pony.

    I have no idea what that means but that is the funniest fucking thing I’ve read in a long time. I plan to repeat liberally (ahem).

  • Thomass, I see your meth dealer “hooked you up again” for round the clock verbal vomiting. As a typical Republicrook, you seem incapable of keeping your word which is exactly why Republicans turn out to be criminals after they lie their way into office. I am sure with your oratorial skills you can Lewinsky your way into the White House where your skills will be valued since Jeff Gannon has been barred. However, you should realize your verbal flatulence is wasted here because very few Kool-Aid drinkers comment here.
    —————————————–
    “It’s neither convenient, nor am I leaving. I said I would be back in 40 days,………………..

    Comment by Thomas — 12/31/2006 @ 5:58 pm”
    ——————————————–
    As for Cindy Sheehan, I haven’t walked in her shoes, but I sense she is feeling outrage that our misleader, the Dumbcider, is going to put more US troops at risk and more mothers will go through what she experienced. It takes a low life scumbag piece of shit to bash her, so I expect Thomass to continue to do so. No disrespect intended to actual shit by comparing it to Thomass.

  • #42 It’s from an old book, There Must be a Pony by James Kirkwood. I read it back in the 70’s and remember it as a somewhat decadent, but hysterical tragedy. But, I remember the entire decade along those lines too.

    A child wakes on Christmas morning to discover a room full of horseshit. He is not disturbed by this at all. He’s elated, because it means there must be a pony.

  • Willard Scott is a fool and uses a fallacious argument to prove his untruth. Denver is not freezing, in fact the forecast for the month of January is for above average temps.

    The two storms were anomalous for the region. Most (80%) of Colorado’s precip. falls west of the Continental Divide, feeding the Colorado River Basin, only 20% of the state’s total on average falls east of the divide where these two recent storms hit. Willard fails to see the irony of huge amounts of snow falling where they wouldn’t normally while the wetter side of the state barely received a flake out of the system.

    Weather is full of anomalous events that in and of themselves do not point to any particular trend. But Colorado is a huge water producing states feeding a large number of other states. The snow that fell is disappearing rapidly, much due to sublimation which is a process where solid, frozen snow goes straight into water vapor and vanishes. When the Arkansas, South Platte and Colorado rivers run drier than normal due to warmer than average temps, more chinook (snow eater) winds and less snow where it should be, Willard will have to explain is ignorant claims then.

  • Found this interesting story below the Spiderman story. Don’t know why it grabbed my attention, it just seemed kind of unusual:

    “Investors: Keep doing nothing, Congress”

    “Democrats’ new five-day congressional workweek might make their supporters happy, but it might not please investors, according to Andrew Roth of the anti-tax interest group Club for Growth.

    “Roth calculated that if you had invested $1 in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 2006 and kept it in the market only on those days when Congress was in session, your return would have been 2.25 percent.

    “On the other hand, that same dollar kept in play only on days when Congress was out of session would have returned 11.56 percent. The spread on the NASDAQ is even more dramatic: -5.7 percent while in session and 8.19 percent out of session.

    “In fact, Roth points to a recent academic study that shows similar results. Mike Ferguson of the University of Cincinnati and Hugh Witte of the University of Missouri at Columbia showed earlier this year that ‘more than 90 percent of the capital gains over the life of the DJIA have come on days when Congress is out of session.'”

    Now granted, the Club For Growth believes in turning America back to the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, and I really don’t know why investments did better on days Congress wasn’t working.
    But it sounds to me like a sad commentary by the market on the effectiveness and competence level of the 109th Congress more than it does an argument for less government.

    I will be interested next year to see how investments do when the 110th Congress is in session.

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